Congratulations to Dr. Lynne Billard in whose honor the AI Institute of the University of New South Wales (Australia) is organizing a data science symposium on the topic of Statistical Analysis of Distributional Data. Details of the event can be found in the flyer linked here

 

The symposium will take place on Friday, August 21, 2026 at the UNSW campus in Sydney, Australia. Those interested in presenting at the event should submit their work by July 3, 2026. The registration link can be found here [https://tinyurl.com/d2323p2a]. 

 

Distributional data analysis refers to the study of random objects whose input is a distribution, a function, or a summary of some random variables/vectors rather than taking a pointwise value in a, possibly multidimensional, space. This includes:

 

• Time series analysis of intervals;

• Summarizing large datasets as distributions for faster analysis;

• Analysis of aggregated data (e.g., data privacy);

• Functional data analysis;

• Analysis of summary statistics (e.g., meta-analysis);

 

This field of research is particularly impactful for the statistical analysis of very large and/or complex datasets.

 

Organization of the symposium in honor of Dr. Billard is a great testament to her contributions to the field of symbolic data analysis and her leadership in the profession. Congratulations, Lynne!